October 24, 2010

Anita Campbell: Small Businesses Are Not Homogenized Milk: #biztech

She starts with some stats on the small business/SMB market which she reminds gets labeled in countless ways depending on the source.

There are 27 million so-called small businesses in the U.S. alone, 21.4 million are single person or owner operators, not employees.

Of that 27 million, there are 5.4 million with 20 employees or under and 600K with 21-500 employees. In the marketplace, a lot of vendors define small business in different ways, as either less than 50 employees or less than 100 employees. Microsoft defines it as under 50 employees and SBA’s definition is between 500-1,000 but since this has to do with government contracting so it’s not really relevant.

SMB tends to mean 100 employees up to 500 or 1,000. The real emphasis is on the M which is mid-sized business. She says, "don’t get confused by the definition of small business, i.e., whether it's an entrepreneur, a startup less than 5 years old, SMB (100-1,000 employees) or a micro-business. Tons of terms define small businesses.

But, she says, "small businesses are not homogenized milk." Some do's and don'ts when target small businesses with your product or service: